


i can't believe they just sent baby yoda off to boarding school

by wellwhiskey



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sad, edit: it’s never mentioned in the text but Cara is played by literally anyone else and is trans, immediately post season 2 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellwhiskey/pseuds/wellwhiskey
Summary: “Was it worth it?” Gideon asks now. Cara knows he isn’t directing the question at Reeves. “Somehow it doesn’tfeellike it was.”i'm sick of it i'm sick of star wars
Comments: 64
Kudos: 238





	1. Chapter 1

“Coordinates locked in,” Cara says to the cockpit at large. “Entering hyperspace in five, four, three, two –“

The stars out of the viewport of the Lamba class shuttle stretch out before the ship. The pit of Cara’s stomach sinks into the base of her spine as the ship flashes out of real space, leaving the ticking bomb they’ve made of the imperial lightcruiser behind.

“Say goodbye to your ship,” Cara hears Reeves bite out from the back of the shuttle, where she leans against the hull to keep an eye on the two prisoners. “Say goodbye to your little _projects_.”

“Tell me,” smarms the voice of Moff Gideon from the open cargo hold of the shuttle, where they’d shoved him on the floor by the Imperial Doctor. The other Imp had looked pale and shaken when they’d returned to the shuttle, only to blanch white when he caught sight of their new prisoner. Neither he nor the Moff had acknowledged the other since.

“Was it worth it?” Moff Gideon asks now. Cara knows he isn’t directing the question at Reeves. “Somehow it doesn’t _feel_ like it was.”

“Shut him up, will you?” Cara snaps over her shoulder, but she keeps her eyes fixed out of the viewport and into the whorls of hyperspace. She finds it exceedingly difficult to turn around. To look.

“You don’t give orders around here, dropper,” replies Bo-Katan, shards of ice dripping from her voice from where she, too, stands in the back corner by the cargo hold.

Cara’s vision flashes in irritation. But before she can get a reply out, Gideon beats her to it.

“Of course she doesn’t,” he remarks. “But then again, neither do you.”

Cara can hear the smirk plain in his voice.

“Technically,” the Moff goes on. “Only one person should be giving orders around here.” Cara hears him shift on the floor, turning to address someone else. “Isn’t that right, your _majesty_? Oh? Yes, that’s what they’ll be calling you, from now on-“

There is a sudden scrape, footsteps, and a _thump_ from Bo-Katan’s direction. Cara hears Gideon grunt in pain. The back door of the cargo hold hisses shut.

Silence falls over the cockpit. More muffled thumps from the cargo hold. No one in the cockpit makes a sound. 

Beside Cara, in the co-pilot’s chair, Fennic taps a finger on the control panel, her gaze stoically fixed out the viewport. As they listen, a muffled yell comes from behind the door of the cargo hold.

The planned rendezvous with Fett was at least half an hour away yet. The silence in the cockpit stretches.

“I told her,” a hoarse voice from the seat behind Cara suddenly breaks it. “That she could have it.”

The Mandalorian sounds strange. Almost unfamiliar, without the distortion of his helmet’s vocolizer. He still hasn’t put it back on. No one in the cockpit has been comfortable enough to say anything to him about it. 

“I don’t want it,” he says now. “She can take it.”

The new immediateness of his voice lands uncomfortably on Cara’s ears. She tries to shake it off and finds that she can’t.

“It doesn’t work that way,” snips Reeves without a trace of feeling, just as the door to the cargo hold hisses back open and Bo-Katan walks back into the cockpit. Cara hears her footsteps almost immedetly come to a halt.

The uncomfortable silence descends again. Cara resists the urge to shift in her seat. _Fuck_ this. The sooner they leave behind these Mandalorian despots, or whatever they are, the better.

“Why don’t you two just arm-wrestle for it?” She throws over her shoulder. She regrets it immediately. The joke falls worse than flat. Making matters worse, beside her, Fennic snorts.

As if in response, the door to the cargo hold hisses shut again.

“You think this is a joke?” Bo-Katan’s voice comes soft and deadly from the back of the ship.

“Of course not,” Cara throws out. She smirks, making herself relax further back in the pilot’s chair. She draws up a leg up and props her elbow on her knee. “Just trying to be pragmatic here, your highness. We’ve got a couple minutes to kill.”

“They could play a round of sabac for it,” Fennic suggests to Cara in total deadpan.

It’s Cara’s turn to snort. She shoots Fennic an amused look.

And then, surprising them both, Djarin says: “I’ve never been good at Sabac.”

Cara is so surprised by the unexpected attempt at a joke that for a moment she forgets about it and turns right around to smirk at him.

Their eyes meet. Her stomach gives an unpleasant jolt.

He’d had the beginnings of something like a smile on his face that flickers out entirely when he meets her eyes. He looks away almost immediately, his gaze landing somewhere to the floor of the cockpit by her chair.

She watches him swallow before likewise looking away as quickly as she can, only to for her eyes to land on Bo-Katan instead, who glowers at her from behind the passenger’s seats.

“You should watch yourself,” the Heiress of Mandalore tells her.

“Oh really?” Cara leans forward, cocking her head to the side and meeting the Mandalorian’s stormy eyes. “And why’s that? Because the way I see it, it’s three against two. And _I’m_ not the one who’s outnumbered.”

“For now,” Bo-Katan tells her softly. Reeves, likewise, narrows her eyes at Cara.

Cara scoffs, and turns back to the viewport.

“Speak for yourself,” Fennic says lowly to Cara, out of the corner of her mouth, once she’s settled back in her seat. “‘ _Three against two_ ’,” she parrots, her eyes never leaving the viewport as she speaks. 

“Thanks,” Cara responds just as sardonically. “I knew I could count on you.”

-

They spend the rest of the flight in silence.

The stolen shuttle lands without incident at the rendezvous point by Fett’s ship. When the gangplank to the shuttle decends, Bo-Katan and Reeves pop on their helmets and depart without another word to anyone.

In the quiet following their departure, the rest of the group stays seated. Through the viewport, Cara watches as the two Mandalorians cross the grounds in front of the shuttle, bee-lining towards their own ship.

Fett strides out of the open ramp of Slave I, his blaster held at attention in his hands. As Cara watches, he halts at the edge of the ramp, his helmet angling in the direction of the other two Mandalorians as they board their own craft. Neither of them spare a glance in his direction.

“Hope that’s the last we see of them,” Cara remarks for lack of anything else to say, as she watches the ramp of their shuttle lift shut and knows that it won’t be. Neither Fennic nor Djarin respond.

Cara lets out a heavy sigh.

“Hey,” she says bracingly, finally turning around. “The good news is-” she starts, going for bravado, and nearly failing when she catches sight of Djarin; his eyes still fixed listlessly on the floor of the shuttle.

“-we’re all rich,” she forces out anyway.

Again, she regrets saying anything. She feels how hollow the words ring down to her core.

Fennic, though, beside her, seems unaffected by the suffocating mood in the cockpit. The sharpshooter quirks a pleased eyebrow in agreement. Then she turns around decisively and stands from the co-pilot’s chair, looking past Djarin and at the closed door of the cargo hold. She smirks.

“You’re kriffing right we are,” she says, and makes her way to their prisoners.

-

They set course for Nevarro, where they plan to part ways with Fett and Fennic after rendezvousing with the New Republic rangers to hand over the Imps and collect the reward.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Gideon asks from the back corner, where they’ve cuffed him to the floor of Fett’s ship. Cara wishes they could’ve put him in carbonite, but Fett’s ship doesn’t have the capability. “Have you ever even _seen_ one before?”

Cara and Djarin are strapped in their seats, side-by-side in the passenger hold. Fennic has abandoned Cara and fled to sit with Fett in the cockpit, leaving the two of them are alone with the Imps. 

“Why are you still talking?” Cara snaps at him.

Gideon’s lip is split open. There is blood coating his teeth when he smiles. He leans back against the hull of the ship.

“You did the right thing,” he continues to talk, watching Djarin, who continues to ignore him. The Mandalorian stares straight ahead at the empty seats across from him and Cara. He looks parsecs away, when Cara chances a glance at him - feeling wrong and weirdly guilty for it. He looks as if nothing Gideon has said has reached him at all.

“She will never stop hunting you,” Gideon goes on, voice cutting ruthlessly through the hum of Fett’s hyperdrive. “No doubt she would have even harmed the child, if it meant-“

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Cara interrupts him sharply.

“-if it meant re-claiming her throne. Perhaps she will even now. I wonder, if even the Jedi will be able to protect him. He would’ve been much safer, had you simply left him in my care.”

Unfortunately, this does it. Djarin snaps out of it. He levels a furious glare at their prisoner.

“In your _care_?” He bites out. But there is blatant upset and emotion distorting the fury on his face. It’s too much. Cara wants to tell him to put his kriffing helmet back on, for the sake of the fucking Force.

Gideon’s eyebrows go up, his mouth opening slightly. An amused look settles over his face.

“Oh?” He says, sounding pleased. “Yes. In _my_ care. Do you know what _happened_ , the last time, Mandalorian? Would you like to hear the story? About what _happened_ to the Jedi?”

“Yeah, that’s enough.” Cara rips off her safety belt and stands, drawing her blaster and setting it to stun.

Gideon ignores her.

“It’s nothing short of a miracle that our little friend survived the first time-“

He is interrupted by Cara’s stun bolt hitting him square in the chest. He slumps lifelessly against the wall, head lolling forward.

Beside him, the Doctor’s head snaps around to look at his commanding officer, eyes wide.

“A single word from you, and I’m switching it off stun,” Cara glowers at him.

The doctor nods, swallowing tightly. He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground.

Djarin is staring at Gideon’s prone form. Cara sees the side of his face twitch as she settles back in her seat.

They sit together in silence for a few more moments.

After a while, Cara says,

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Djarin startles, tearing his eyes away from Gideon. She can see him look at her out of the corner of her eye.

“You saw that, back there,” Cara presses on, ignoring his reaction and staring resolutely ahead, uncomfortable with the notion of meeting his eyes again. “You saw what that guy could do. No one’s gonna get near the kid with him around.”

He looks away from her. His eyes land again somewhere down on the floor. He is silent for so long that she has long since given up on hearing a reply when he says, “I know.”

-

“Welcome, mighty warriors!” Greef Karga greets them in his usual boisterous manner at the base of the gangplank as Fett and Fennic stride first out of Fett’s ship. Cara has sent Nevarro’s magistrate a brief correspondence, only informing him that they are bringing back two _highly_ valuable prisoners. Karga is beyond shrewd enough to understand the meaning underlying her message, and likely knows exactly who it is they have on board.

But she hadn’t mentioned, well, anything else.

“I’ve been told I should clear some room in the brig,” Greef tells them cheerfully, as Fett and Fennic stride out, the both of them looking characteristically unimpressed. Greef then looks from them up to Cara, eyes landing on her first.

“Ah,” he exclaims, his grin widening. “Welcome back, Marshall Dune. And how was –“

His voice falls silent as his eyes land on something behind her. The grin drops clean off his face. He blinks.

“Mando?” he says.

“They’re in the back of the ship,” Cara says quickly, striding up to the magistrate and clamping a hand on his shoulder. He gives her a look. She gives him one back.

“We’ll need a closed cockpit transport speeder,” she goes on, as if nothing is horrifically amiss right behind her. “Last thing we need is anyone finding out what we’ve got here. Not before the Republic arrives, anyway.”

“Right,” Greef says, a little too loudly. He clears his throat. He glances back behind her. He glances away again very quickly. “I’ve got one on the way now,” he tells her. 

“Good,” she gives his shoulder a pat before letting go. “And after that,” she says, “I think I could use a drink.”   
  
-

“What the _hell_ happened out there?” Greef asks her urgently, leaning in close as soon as Djarin has wandered out of earshot, with his back to them. “Where’s the little one?” He adds, eyes darkening with worry.

“He’s fine,” Cara tells him. “He’s safe,” she adds, shoving down a wave of something like vertigo at the memory of _how_ and _why_. She keeps seeing it. The man in black, cutting his way through the dark troopers as easily as batting away flies. She thinks of an invisible hand tightening around her windpipe.

“He went with the Jedi,” she clarifies.

Greef’s eyebrows raise.

“The Jedi?” He repeats, voice low.

Cara nods.

“This isn’t right,” Greef pronounces, straightening back up again. “The child ought to be here. With him.” He nods in the direction Djarin has gone in.

Cara lets out a heavy sigh. Everything in her wants to agree. And yet.

“What happened to his,” Greef gestures about his face. “You know.”

“He took it off,” Cara tells him. “He just – took it off. To say goodbye to the kid.”

“Dank Farrik,” Greef swears lowly, looking off after Djarin.

“Yeah,” Cara agrees.

-  
  
After, they sit around a table in Greef’s office, an open bottle of Twi’lek spiced rum, three glasses, and an enormous pile of New Republic credits between them.

“It’s all yours,” says Djarin. He is staring at the glass in his hand. He clinks it around. He has yet to drink any of it.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Greef admonishes. “You could buy ten new ships with these credits.”

“I don’t need a ship.”

Greef lets out a disbelieving scoff. He looks beseechingly to Cara for back-up. She shrugs.

“Now listen here, Mando,” Greef turns back to him. “Just because –“

“Don’t call me that.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to call you?” Greef demands.

Djarin blinks, looking momentarily taken aback, as if this is something he has never considered before.

“Din?” He tries.

Greef looks at him.

“I’m not calling you that,” he says.

“It’s my name.”

“Well,” Greef leans back, looking exceedingly uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t _like_ it, Mando.”

Then the magistrate leans back and finishes the rest of his drink in one shot. He drops the glass back on the table with a thump. 

“That’s too bad,” Djarin says. 

Cara scoffs. The corner of Djarin’s mouth quirks for a moment into something like a smile.

Cara has finished her first drink. And a second drink. And so she says, 

“The only problem is,” she lifts a finger off her third drink and points at Djarin. “He’s the king of Mandalore now.”

Greef frowns at her, and then looks at Djarin, who is scowling deeper at his glass.

"What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks them.

Before either one of them can answer, the doorbell chimes and in walks Mythrol.

"Sorry for the delay, boss,” he says, coming around behind his desk. He glances at the assembled trio. “Hey there Marshall Dune,” he says, waving a webbed hand. Then his eyes land on the credits.

"Sweet mudscuffers,” he says. 

“Watch it, Mythrol,” Greef warns.   
  
“Meant nothin’ by it boss, meant nothing by it.” He holds up both hands up in defense, shuffling further behind his desk. “Just a lot of credits, is all.” 

Greef turns back to the table, shaking his head. He frowns back at Djarin. 

“What do you mean, king of Mandalore?”

“It’s nothing,” says Djarin.

”I dunno,” Cara raises her eyebrows with significance. “Those buddies of yours didn’t seem to think so.” 

“What buddies?” Says Greef. “What’s she talking about, Mando?” 

“It’s a misunderstanding. It doesn’t matter.” 

“Sweet _kriffing_ mudscuffers,” comes another exclamation from the front desk. They all look up at Mythrol.

He stares opened-mouthed back at them.

”Is that -“ he blinks, looking back and forth between Cara, Greef, and Djarin. “Huh,” he says. “Am I hallucinating? Mando?”

Djarin glares back at him.   
  
“What,” Mythrol clears his throat. “What - what - what happened to your, uh.” 

“He’s the king of Mandalore now,” Cara tells him for some reason. 

“Oh,” Mythrol says, as if this explains anything. His voice is several pitches higher than it was before. “Well, that’s nice. Um. Congratulations. Your, uh, highness.”

”Don’t you have work to do?” Greef snaps at him. And then he turns back around.

”Now tell me,” he looks between Cara and Djarin. “What _exactly_ is this about?” 

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know why I wrote this. It didn’t make me feel better and I am still sad about baby yoda going off to jedi college


	2. i can't believe they just sent baby yoda off to boarding school part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still in my feelings and missing him (baby yoda) so I wrote more

Night falls quickly on Nevarro. The planet's hazy sun is low in the sky now, casting long shadows through the office.

The three of them stare at the hilt of the saber Djarin has placed on the table. 

“This is it?” Greef sounds unimpressed. “I don’t get it. What’s it supposed to do?” He reaches out a finger and gives it a nudge.

Cara is on drink four.

“Just watch,” she tells Greef. She looks over to Djarin. “You gonna show him?”

The Mandalorian has been watching the saber hilt as if he expects it to spring to life on its own and stab him through his beskar. He glances up at her, and then looks back to the table. Slowly, he reaches out, wrapping a gloved hand carefully around the saber’s grip. He lifts it from the table like it weighs more than it possibly could.

“Stay back,” he says gruffly. He pushes his chair from the table and stands, taking a step away from them. Cara watches his hands as he turns the hilt over in his palms, examining it for a moment before holding it decisively away from himself. Then, he slowly runs a thumb over a mechanism on the hilt that Cara can’t see.

The shimmering onyx blade climbs to life in his hand; a void-like slice of tangible, glowing energy. A high, clear note rings out from it, filling the room like the sustained sound of a struck bell.

Greef pushes back his chair and stands. Despite seeing it on the bridge of the light cruiser, looking at it now in these these close, familiar quarters, Cara feels her breath catch. 

The high, song-like note of the dark blade reverberates through the office. In demonstration, Djarin cuts it down through the open air. A solid, angular trail of ink-dark plasma trails in the wake of the saber’s path.

From across the room, Mythrol lets out a low whistle.

“Dank _Farrik_ ,” Greef breaths, his eyes tracking the path of the glimmering plasma. “I take it back, Mando," he says. “I think I get it now.”

Djarin brings the blade back up. A slight frown creases over his brow as he looks at it. 

“It can cut through anything,” Cara tells Greef. “Or almost anything,” she adds, with a nod in Djarin’s direction. 

“You mean it can’t cut through beskar,” Greef surmises. 

“Yes,” Djarin answers him distractedly. He tears his eyes away from the blade and glances down at his free, beskar-clad arm. He brings it up in front of him. As they all watch, he drops the shimmering blade down on the back of his wrist.

There is a resounding _crack_ as the plasma strikes his vambrace. Cara blinks and Greef jerks back as the blade ricochets off the beskar in a shower of white sparks.

As the sparks settle out, Greef lets out an awed laugh. He shakes his head.

“That’s really something, Mando,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything like it. How does it _work_?”

Djarin lowers his arm and raises the blade back up before him. The bright, crawling edges of it reflect in his eyes.

“I don't know,” he says, his gaze settling on the sharply-defined point at the tip of the blade. The weapon's iridescent light plays in waves across his face, undercut with an eerie, black-lit glow that reflects double off his armor. “Some sort of sorcery, maybe. It’s almost like weapons I’ve seen before. Those wielded by the Jedi.”

“You mean, like the man in black,” Cara recalls. She looks away from the blade to Djarin. “Like that green laser sword he had?”

Djarin nods tightly.

“Maybe it’s some sort of,” Greef gestures vaguely with his hands. “Some sort of energy field? Maybe it just creates an - I don’t know - a really _strong_ laser.”

“’Doesn’t look much like a laser to me,” Cara scoffs, looking at the blade over. “I dunno. I can't believe I'm saying this. But my money’s on weird magic.”

“It’s not magic,” Mythrol chimes in from his desk. “It’s probably a kyber crystal.”

Cara scowls and Djarin lowers the blade. The two of them turn with Greef to look at the bookkeeper. Mythrol shifts uncomfortably in his seat under their combined stares, suddenly looking like he wished he’d stayed quiet. 

“What?” Demands Djarin.

“You know,” says Mythrol. “Kyber crystals?”

They stare at him.

“I watched an holo-documentary about them once,” Mythrol tells them.

Djarin’s brows knit together. It’s jarring, Cara thinks, how expressive he is.

“A holo-documentary,” he repeats. The way he says the words make Cara suspect the Mandalorian personally has never watched one. 

“Yeah. It was actually outlawed in nine-thousand systems,” Mythrol begins explaining. “During the Empire, you could get charged with treason for even having a copy on your ship.” He lets out a nervous laugh. “You know, I probably had one of the last copies, now that I think about it.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Greef tells him, not sounding interested in the slightest. “Can you tell us anything _useful_ about it?”

“Yeah, sure boss. I remember most of it.”

“Do you still have it?” Djarin presses.

“Eh, no. ‘fraid not, Mr. uh, your majesty Mando,” Mythrol clears his throat. “ _But_ ,” he holds up a webbed index finger when it looks like Greef is about to interrupt him. “I remember what it talked about. Kyber crystals are what powered lightsabers.”

"Powered what?" Cara asks him. 

“Could you explain in basic, for the rest of us?” Greef backs her up.

“Sure thing, boss. Those are the laser swords you guys are talking about. I think. _And_ ,” he adds pointedly, fending off another interruption. “Based on the theory behind the design, some people think they can be used to power other types of weapons, too. That’s why the Empire wanted all of the public knowledge on them destroyed.”

Then he pauses. He looks like he is considering his next words carefully.

“Some people think it’s what they used in the Death Stars,” he ends up saying.

No one says anything. After a beat, Djarin collapses the dark blade back into the hilt. In the absence of its etherial ring, silence swallows the room. 

The Mandalorian holds up the hilt of the saber and scowls at it. Then he looks to Mythrol.

“ _This_ is the same thing that powered the Death Star?” He holds the hilt up for Mythrol to see.

“Well, not exactly,” Mythrol tells him quickly. “The kyber crystals in the Death Star would’ve been, you know. Bigger.” He blinks. “Presumably.” 

“Bigger,” Cara hears herself repeat him.

“Yeah. Like really, really big.” Mythrol demonstrates their size by holding up both of his hands and stretching them as far apart as he can.

They all look from Mythrol to the now-silent saber hilt in the Mandalorian’s hand.

“Anyway, it doesn’t really matter,” Mythrol adds quickly, dropping his arms. “That thing’s probably just got a little tiny crystal in it. Not like it could blow up a-”

He cuts himself off, Cara doesn’t miss the subtlest of glances in her direction.

“Well, you know,” the bookkeeper finishes lamely. His eyes land back on the saber hilt in Djarin’s hand. “That’s gotta be a weird little kyber crystal, though,” he adds unhelpfully. 

“Then, you think this is the same kind of weapon as the Jedi’s laser swords?” Djarin presses.

“Lightsabers,” Mythrol corrects him automatically. Djarin’s face darkens into a glare. Mythrol swallows. “But sure,” he adds quickly. “I mean it looks _kinda_ like the ones from the holo-doc. Only _way_ cooler.” 

“‘ _Way cooler_ ’?,” Greef repeats, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Hey, you asked, boss!” Mythrol holds up his hands. “You know I’m always happy to share my knowledge. _You’re_ the ones who say you’ve actually seen one!” He adds, pointing at Cara and Djarin.

Cara blows out a breath and leans back in her seat. She looks over at Djarin.

“So it’s a fancy laser sword,” she says.

“Lightsaber-“ Mythrol cuts in. 

“I _don’t_ see how this helps us with our problem,” she finishes, pointedly ignoring the bookkeeper.

Djarin sighs. He turns the hilt over in his hand one more time, and then a grimace passes over his face. He places the hilt it back on the table.

They all watch it now.

“Maybe we should destroy it,” Djarin says. 

“Well, now,” Greef interjects, eyeing the Mandalorian carefully. “Let’s not do anything too hasty, Mando.” He moves his cloak to the side and sits back down in his chair, leaning back and crossing his legs on the table. He nudges aside some of the Republic credits with his ankle to make room. “That thing sounds like it’s pretty important to some people,” he points out, raising a significant brow at the saber. 

“Some people,” Djarin repeats dryly, his eyes fixed in an unfocused way on the hilt where it remains still and silent on the table.

Greef frowns at him. He glances over at Cara. She rolls her eyes and turns to Djarin.

“I still don’t understand why she can’t just play you for it in Sabac,” she throws out, only half-joking.

“Low-stakes game,” Djarin replies in a dull voice, still staring morosely at the saber hilt. “Winner becomes the ruler of a empty planet. A dead planet. Where even the air is poison.”

Nobody says anything. Cara angles another look at Greef. The magistrate widens his eyes at her imploringly. She imperceptibly shakes her head back at him. They look away from each other. Cara takes a long sip of drink five. 

"Well, if no one else wants it," chimes Mythrol from the corner. "I’ll take it." 

"No one is giving you a laser sword, Mythrol," Greef tells him without looking at him. 

"Um. _Lightsaber_." 

"Say that _one_ more time-"

"Actually," Cara interjects, thinking about it. She turns back to Djarin. "That's an idea. You can say Mythrol beat it off you." 

"No one in the galaxy would believe that," Greef tells her. 

"Hey-!"

"I give it to him," Djarin cuts in darkly. "And he's dead in a matter of hours.”

"Worse things could happen,” Cara points out.

" _Hey_ ," Mythrol says again. But he visibly swallows. "Well - I was just _joking_ , anyway," he tells them. "No offense, your, er, Mandalorian highness.”

“I don’t think he wants you to call him that,” Greef throws out.

“I don’t know,” drawls Cara. “I think you should keep doing it.”

Djarin ignores them. He has gone back to glaring at the saber hilt as if it alone is responsible for all of his problems. 

“Well, look,” Greef says loudly, his tone clearly indicating it is time to change the subject. “It’s not like this – what was her name, Bo-Katan? – is gonna show up in the next five minutes.” He decisively leans forward in his chair and swings his feet off the table, planting them back on the floor. “What say we forget about all this for a little while, and I buy us all some drinks? To celebrate the two of you pulling off one _hell_ of a job.”

“Sounds good to me,” says Mythrol. 

Greef spares him half a glance. 

“No one said you were coming,” he tells the bookkeeper offhandedly.

“I thought we were already having a drink,” Djarin says.

“Well,” Cara nods at the Mandalorian's still-untouched glass. “Some of us were.”

He shoots her an absurdly sincere look of betrayal. She tries very hard not to smile when she looks back at him.

“But anyway,” she says to Greef, giving in and giving Djarin a smirk. “I don’t think I’m really feeling it tonight, boss. ‘Think I’m just gonna stay in tonight. But thanks for the offer.”

“If you say so,” Greef sounds uncertain. He glances at Djarin. “Mando?”

“No.”

“Alright,” Greef shrugs helplessly. “Suit yourselves."

He leans forward for the bottle of rum on the table.

“But _I’m_ gonna celebrate,” he tells them, popping the bottle back open. “That Gideon guy _creeped_ me out.”

He leans back over the table and pours more of the Twi'lek rum into his glass. For a long, painful moment, the sound of liquor tinkling over ice is the only noise in the room.

Cara decides to finish off the rest of drink five.

When she does, she drops the empty glass on the table with a _clink._ Greef happily leans over with the bottle and re-fills it for her.

As he tops it off, she looks back up at Djarin. He still hasn’t moved. 

"You gonna sit back down?" She asks him.

He blinks up at her, tearing his gaze from the saber. As soon as their eyes meet, he glances away again. 

"I should go," he says to the far wall. 

"Nah, stay a little while," Greef says good-naturedly, waving Djarin back over to the table. "After all," he adds solemnly. "This is a rare occasion." 

Djarin glances at him.

"How so?" 

"Because," the magistrate salutes the Mandalorian with his glass, his lips tightly pressed together. "It's not every day I have the honor of entertaining royalty in my humble office."

Cara snorts into her new drink. 

"Very funny," Djarin says dryly. He steps forward and snatches the darksaber back off the table, clipping it back to his belt. 

"Now Mando, wait," Greef's tone drops into seriousness. He sets his glass down on the table and leans forward on an elbow, fixing Djarin with a sincere look. "I mean it," he says. "Stay a little while. Rest up for a few days."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

"Well, at the very least," Greef amends, spreading his hands. "Stay the night! And for stars sake. You should put that thing back on.” He nods to the helmet shoved by Djarin's pack against the wall. “None of us want to see what you look like all the time.” 

“You can say that again,” mutters Mythrol from the corner. 

“Shut up, Mythrol,” Greef snaps at him. 

“Shutting up, boss.”

Greef turns back to Djarin. 

“I mean it, Mando,” he says earnestly. “Who cares? You’re more yourself with it on, eh? And you're gonna need to be at your best out there. And I'm sick of looking at your face.”

“I can’t,” Djarin tells him. 

“Why not?” Greef asks, his voice casual. He leans back in his chair, trying to sell it. “We won’t tell anyone.” He shoots a glare at Mythrol. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah. Course,” Mythrol says quickly. 

“That’s not, -” Djarin sighs. “It doesn’t work that way.” 

“I’ve heard that before,” Cara says before she can think about it.

Djarin shoots her a glare. 

“What?” He asks a little harshly.

Drink five, she reminds herself. 

“Isn’t that sort of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place?" She says anyway. "With the saber thing?”

He gives her a dry look. Cara meets it. It’s coming a little easier now to look at his eyes. Probably because of the five drinks. 

“I’m just saying,” she adds with a shrug. 

Djarin looks away.

“It’s different,” he tells her.

“Really?” She asks lightly. “How's that?"

Djarin doesn't respond. But he narrows his eyes at the spot he is looking at on the floor on the other side of the room. 

"Look," Cara goes on, feeling like she's definitely going to regret it. Drink five. "I get it. I do. But right now? This just seems like just another arbitrary rule that's making things a lot harder than they need to be."

His head snaps back up. There is a sudden, alarming intensity in his eyes. 

“No,” he tells her gravely, his face darkening. “It isn’t like that at all. You don’t understand. You are not –“

He freezes, his voice cutting off. He looks away from her, swallowing hard.

“Well, that princess and her people do it,” Cara points out, barreling onward. “And when she comes to kill you, she'll be wearing hers. Doesn't that mean something? They still call themselves Mandalorians.”

He looks back up at her, some new conviction lighting up his eyes.

“Exactly,” he bites out.

Cara quirks an eyebrow at him.

“That’s fair,” she admits. “But that doesn’t have to mean-“

“You’re wrong,” he interrupts her. “It does. I am _not_ like them.”

“No,” she looks at him. “You’re not.”

He looks as if he wants to respond, but then his jaw works shut. For a record amount of time he simply scowls at her, the eye contact lasting an impressively long while.

Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

Greef raises his eyebrows and turns to watch him go as he strides out of the office. But the magistrate makes no move to stop him. The Mandalorian passes by Mythrol's desk without so much as a glance and ducks out of the doorway into the dark street. The brown fabric over the doorway flutters in his wake.

“Yikes,” says Mythrol.

“Shut up, Mythrol,” Cara snaps at him.

They watch at the door for a minute.

“Well,” Greef says heavily, when the Mandalorian doesn’t immediately return. He turns back around to the table. Then he frowns down at.

“He left all his credits here," he says. 

He’d also left, Cara noticed with a jolt, his helmet. The sight of it sitting alone and dejected by the wall was accompanied by an unexpected, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Guilt, maybe. Why had she said something so fucking stupid? Of course it wasn't an _arbitrary rule_ . . .

“I’ll hold onto them for him,” she tells Greef, as she stares at the helmet. “He can't get too far."

It’s not like he has a ship, she doesn't add. She wonders where he plans on sleeping. Maybe he hadn't thought that far ahead. 

“It’s crazy,” Mythrol remarks. “He just looked like a regular guy under there the whole time.”

Greef lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“What did you think he looked like?” He throws out. Then he looks over to Cara.

“Can he at least _visit_ the kid?” He asks her. “I mean, what are these little green people like, anyway?”

“They’re not all little green people,” Cara tells him. “At least, the guy I saw wasn’t.”

“Huh,” says Greef. “I thought you said he was green."

"I said his _laser sword_ was green. _Don't_ ," she points with her drink hand at Mythrol, who has started to open his mouth. 

"What was his name?” Greef presses. 

Cara blinks, thinking about it. Then she leans back in her seat as the realization hits her.

“Dank _Farrik_ ,” she exclaims. “He didn’t tell us.”

"He didn't _tell you_?" Greef repeats incredulously. 

Cara shakes her head, wondering how she hadn’t noticed before. It had seemed the most simple, correct thing in the universe, to send the kid off with the man in black. Something in the air had almost seemed to sing with it. The kid belonged with him. With the Jedi.

 _A race of enemy sorcerers_ , she recalls. A chill runs up her spine.

“Wait a minute,” Mythrol interjects. “You mean you gave the little green kid to some random guy?”

“I don’t remember it being any of your business,” Cara snaps at him. 

“Alright, alright. Jeez Louise. . ."

Greef was frowning at her.

“Are you sure he was one of the kid’s people?” He asks, brow furrowed in concern. “Did he say he was one of the sorcerers? Did he have powers too?”

“Oh,” Cara huffs out a laugh. “ _Yeah_ , he did.”

She takes another long swig of her drink. 

“Powers?” asks Mythrol. 

Cara slams her glass on the table and turns around to the bookkeeper.

“ _Why_ are you still here?” She demands. 

“I’m working late!” He cries in defense.

“Well, try working a little quieter."

“Okay, okay!” He turns back to his data screen, shaking his head. “You guys are so mean,” he mutters.

Greef is still frowning at her.

“The kid seemed like he recognized the guy,” she adds a little defensively, to placate his worried look. “Or – something like that. Look, he _wanted_ to go with him.”

“Ah,” is all Greef says. He looks away, his eyes drifting to the back of his right arm where it lays resting on the table by his drink. 

The sit in silence for a few more moments. Cara decides it's time to finish drink six.

“Did this guy at least say where he was taking him?” Greef asks her. He frowns as he looks at his arm. "I already bought the kid a present for Life Day." 

Cara swallows down the last of the watered-down rum.

“What do you think?” She throws out around the harsh burn of it in her throat. 

"Mm," Greef responds. He stares at the table, a blank look in his eyes. 

They sit in silence a little longer, until Mythrol lets out a sigh.

“I’ll sure miss the little guy," he says. 


	3. still missing baby yoda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I should’ve given this fic a better name but it’s too late now

After an awkward sixth drink, exhaustion hits Cara like a duracreet wall and she decides it’s time to catch some sleep. 

She is wandering her way contentedly through Nevarro’s lamp-lit streets with the rest of Greef’s bottle of rum in one hand and The Mandalorian’s abandoned pack – now stuffed full of Republic Credits and his helmet - in the other. She nods to the last of the street merchants closing up shop, and side steps to avoid a gaggle of children hopping around after the glowing summer lava-bugs, catching the last few minutes of play-time before their families call them home for the night. Through the warm evening air, music drifts from somewhere; a burst of laughter from somewhere else. Cara takes a deep breath.

Nevarro wasn’t always like this. And it’s her job to make sure it stays this way. She keeps her eyes peeled. But as she walks, pleasantly buzzed and with her own share of the reward weighing down her pockets, she thinks that, all-in-all, things could certainly be worse. 

It isn’t until she’s made it out towards the edge of town that she spies an out of place glint off the rooftop of one of the town’s tallest buildings. She halts, months of her earlier experience with this planet raising her hackles, but then she realizes what it is.

The buzzed, infections contentment she’d found on the walk home drains regretfully out of her, leaving her with nothing but an irritatingly impossible to ignore sinking feeling in her stomach. She sighs, and jams the rest of the rum into Mando’s pack before slinging it over her shoulder.

She veers off course down an alley and makes her way to a tower of crates and a drainpipe attached to the side of the building. He’d probably jetpacked up there or something, but Cara could manage too.

By the time she swings herself up onto the flat-roof, Djarin still hasn’t moved. He doesn’t acknowledge her as she tromps loudly across the sun-bleached stucco to where he sits on the far side of the building with his legs dangled over the wall, looking out over the city.

“You forgot something,” Cara says by way of greeting. She picks out her bottle of rum from his bag and then drops it unceremoniously next to him. “You planning on sleeping up here?” 

“Yeah,” he says bluntly, without looking up. “Why?” 

"I dunno," she says. "I guess it's a great place to sleep. If you feel like being some reptavian's dinner." 

A scowl crosses over Djarin's face. 

"I used to live here. Sometimes.” He tells her. "They don't come near the city." 

"Yeah, yeah," Cara drops down next to him, likewise hanging a leg off the edge as she pulls her other knee up towards her to rest her elbow on. She follows his gaze out over the street below them to the far lava flats. Nevarro doesn’t have any moons, but out on the edge of town the light from the spattering of stars that burn overhead illuminate the landscape nearly as well. In the starlight, the flats look dark and craggy, the blackness of them intercut here and there with lines of burning red.

“Sorry about that,” she says reluctantly, after they sit there a while. “Earlier.”

Djarin looks down at his lap. The scowl seems to lighten off his face a bit. He knocks the heel of his boot against the wall. Cara hopes they aren’t sitting right over someone’s window.

“I’m sorry too,” he says, voice rough. “I shouldn’t have –“ he cuts himself off. Then he lets out a frustrated sigh, angling his head back up at the night sky.

“Nah,” she tells him, giving his pauldron a nudge with her own armored shoulder. They meet with a dull _clank_. “It’s on me. It was a - a stupid fucking thing to say. I'm sorry.”

You just lost your kid, she catches just before she says it. Instead she uncorks the rum bottle with her teeth and peers into its dwindling blue depths.

“You should seriously take the credits,” she tells him as she looks at it. “I mean, seriously.”

He scoffs. 

“Oh, yeah?” He doesn’t look at her, but braces his arms on either side of himself on the ledge as he stares out at the black horizon.

“Yeah.” Cara glances at him, before looking down to the street below them. Here, beneath colorful lights strung between the buildings, a giggling couple skips by, the two girls holding hands, leaning happily into each other. Neither one of them appears seemingly worried or cautious out on Nevarro’s night-time roads.

“Y’know," she gestures with the bottle out over the peaceful street. "We did this,” she says, looking back up from the pair under the cheery strings of light. “Well,” she amends. “I did it, mostly. But you started it." She nudges his shoulder again with her fist. He rocks begrudgingly beneath it. "I wouldn’t’ve been here to help Karga clean up the town, if it weren’t for you.”

“Not for me,” he tells her, voice low and hoarse. His eyes remain fixed on the stars. “It was for him.”

Cara frowns at him. Then she sits back, looking away.

“Shit,” she says. “You’re right.”

Djarin doesn’t respond. Cara joins him in silence and looks far out over the street; over the buildings. In the distance, there is a flash of orange and crimson on the flats as a short spray of lava busts its way through the surface. More laugher floats up to them from the streets below. 

“Funny what a difference that little guy made, huh?” She says before she means to. “When you really think about it.”

Djarin lets out another scoff. But this one is different. It’s quieter, more fond.

“Yeah,” he says thickly. “When you think about it.”

Something in Cara’s chest twists. She tries to wrestle it into submission, but instead she says, through the haze of rum and something, something else - 

“Guess we’ll have to make it up to him somehow.” She clears her throat. “Keep making a difference for him.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Djarin glance at her.

“That’s what it’s all about, right?” She manages to say, before it becomes too hard to say anything else.

“What?” 

“I’m _saying_ ,” she squashes down the tightness in her throat by grabbing the helmet out of his pack and shoving it in his lap. He jerks back, hands going up to grab it on instinct. “Quit being so fucking dramatic.”

He looks at her, surprise and anger and grief warring openly on his face. His fingers tighten white and tense around his helmet although he does not look at it. She glares back at him, watching the gears in his head turning plainly in his eyes as he seems to be working through what to say to her next. 

“You can do more good like this, you know?” she says, nudging the helmet further in his lap before he can come up with anything to say to her. “For him. For the world he’s going to live in. Because if you don’t,” her voice catches. “If you don’t, there may not _be_ a world for him to live in.”

His expression darkens as he looks at her. Then he glances away, grief seemingly winning him over for the moment. 

“You think I don’t know that?” He says.

Cara feels her mouth twist. Guilt, again. And here she'd thought her days of picking drunk fights were over. 

“I know you do,” she says finally, looking away. She thinks of a pile of carbon-scored helmets; stacked in the sewers under the streets of this very city. “I know you do.” 

Any trace of the covert beneath Nevarro was long gone, now. The Armorer herself had disappeared in the scant weeks following the liberation of the city, taking the rest of her people’s salvaged souls along with her.

“My planet’s dead too,” the words are ripped from her, for some fucking reason, before she can stop them. “Not just dead. _Gone_. My people are-” she swallows - hard - and compensates for her lack of words by flinging a hand towards the scattered stars.

Djarin turns to look at her. He has a terrible haircut, she notices. Currently, it is sticking up everywhere in neglected disarray. On top of that, his expression is almost comically miserable. It’s enough to help her keep going.

“So I _get_ it,” she repeats herself from earlier. “I fucking get it, Mando. But you can’t stop fighting for him now.”

His gaze shifts to the helmet in his lap.

“I wasn’t going to,” he says miserably. “I just –“

Then, to Cara’s horror, his voice hitches into silence and he squeezes his eyes shut. 

“Oh god,” she says automatically, sitting upright. “ _Don’t_ start crying.” 

“I’m not-” he starts tightly. He shakes his head, his face screwing up even further. Then he draws his knees up and buries his head in his arms.

“Okay,” she says bluntly, looking quickly away from him. She lets out a long breath, and takes a deep swig out of Greef’s bottle. She looks back at Djarin. “Okay,” she repeats again, watching his shoulders shake silently. She reaches out and pats him stiffly on the back. It feels like knocking her hand against a durasteel wall.

“It’s okay, man,” she repeats again. Thank The Force she’d brought the rest of this rum along. “Yeah. That’s it. Let it out.”

But she finds her eyes are stinging too for some reason. She fixes them determinedly on the far side of the street and takes another long drink.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” comes Djarin’s muted voice from between his arms.

“You’d better be,” she tells him, bringing the bottle back down. He responds with a wet, muffled laugh, and she moves her hand to grip his shoulder. They sit like that for a while. Cara, now, looks up at the sky. 

Alderaan’s star is still visible from most planets in the outer rim. It will be for some centuries to come, until the truth of the planet’s extinguished light finds its way through the vast stretches of the galaxy. Usually, Cara can’t stand to look at it, yet she knows its place by heart in the star charts of any part of the galaxy. In many places she’s lived, the planet would be in the wrong hemisphere to view all at, or it would be too dim, drowned out by moons or nebulas or electric light. But for whatever cosmic reason, the ghost of Alderaan burns with bright distinction in the skies above Nevarro. And in this cloudless, warm night, it is impossible not to find it. Cara stares up at it until her vision blurs.

Eventually, Djarin’s breath stops hitching, evening out to a more bearable rhythm. Cara is hesitant to make the first move, until she spots a slight movement down on the street out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh, hey,” she says, looking down from the sky as she recognizes it. She blinks a few times, trying to clear her eyes. “I saved that little guy.”

Slowly, Djarin shifts beside her, unfolding his arms and lifting his head back up. His hair is even worse than before. He swipes the clothed joint of his wrist over his eyes and follows to where Cara is pointing, his brow furrowed in a confused scowl. Beneath them, they watch the little Nubian fire-weasel she’d found down in the tunnels skitter across the street.

“Is that a Nubian fire-weasel,” Djarin asks her thickly.

“Yep,” she grins wryly. “Some raiders down in the tunnels were going to eat him. Now, he follows me around for food.” 

“Oh,” Djarin says shortly. He looks back up from the street, pulling one of his legs close to him. “Grogu never liked what I fed him," he says to his knee rockets. "He usually ate frogs. Or bugs.”

Cara looks at him in surprise.

“Grogu?”

Djarin nods tightly.

“I think he liked the thrill of the hunt,” he tells her wetly.

“No, I mean,” she frowns skeptically at him. “Was that his name?”

“Yeah,” he smiles tightly. “Grogu.”

“Oh,” Cara feels taken aback. “I didn’t know he had a name.”

Djarin nods again. But Cara’s frown deepens. 

“Did _you_ name him that?”

“No,” he shakes his head, voice coming out uneven. “That was his name. Before.”

“Oh,” says Cara. Then she too looks back out over the street. “Well, no offense. But I kinda hate it.”

Djarin lets out something more like a sob than a laugh, but it’s close enough.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes shining and distant as he smiles fondly. “But he – he knew it. It was his name.”

“Grogu?” Cara tries it out. Djarin’s breath hitches in something like a laugh. 

“Yeah,” he says, his expression going tight again. “Yeah.”

"Why did someone name him that,” Cara asks herself. 

Djarin doesn't answer. On the street beneath them, a late night merchant rattles his cart down the cobblestones, whistling some vaguely-familiar cantina melody that only makes it in snippets up to the roof. 

"What if he doesn't like that blonde kid," Djarin says.

"I dunno," Cara tells him dryly. She herself had been trying not to think about the blonde kid. "He seemed nice enough," she adds, just to make him feel better. But she glances out of the corner of her eye only to see a legitimately distressed expression on Djarin’s face as he gazes out towards the lava flats. She decides to change the subject.

“Do you think the kid's gonna get one of those laser swords?" She asks. "With the kybee crystals, or whatever?"

"I don’t know," Djarin tells her seriously. And then: “He’s too young for that.”

"He could get his own little green one," Cara goes on. "He could, like, cut people's ankles with it." 

Djarin laughs, or cries. She cant really tell. 

"I'm telling you," she goes on. "No one would ever see it coming." 

Djarin doesn't say anything to this, but he does laugh again, more genuinely this time. Cara looks back away from him, out over the city. She hopes if she ever crosses paths with the kid - Grogu - again, that he remembers her. If for no other reason than he could probably take her the fuck out, if he wanted to. Oddly enough, the thought makes her smile.

Her eyes find Alderaan again, but this time she feels something different, looking at it. The planet would still burn in the night skies of countless planetary systems for centuries to come, a point of guidance in the star charts, mapping the way for lost travelers. Even now, it was a pinprick of light, holding back the dark. And like it, Cara - along with Djarin and the kid and Greef and the rest - was still here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the end! Thank you guys so much for reading. Your comments and kudos have sustained me through the dark January winter of the American experience. In the next chapter I won't write, Grogu and Din are reunited and never leave each other again. 
> 
> Also, I have no idea what that weasel thing Cara saves at the beginning of season 2 episode 4 actually is, or if there is a solid canon explanation for it (wookiepedia calls it a ‘lava meerkat’ - yawn) but calling it a Nubian Fire Weasel cracked me up. I named it that for three reasons: 1. to pay homage to Padme's Nubian-Class Starship from the phantom menace, 2. because of the way that is it vaguely weasel-like in form, and 3. because it supposedly [breathes fire](https://i.redd.it/96eg8zpfmi061.png).


End file.
